Transcriber’s Notes:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.
* * * * *
THE RED CROSS GIRLS IN THE BRITISH TRENCHES
[Illustration: IT DID NOT OCCUR TO HER THAT SHE WAS IN EQUAL
PERIL--(_See page 250_)]
* * * * *
The Red Cross Girls in the British Trenches
By
MARGARET VANDERCOOK
Author of “The Ranch Girls Series,” “Stories
about Camp Fire Girls Series,” etc.
Illustrated
The John C. Winston Company
Philadelphia
* * * * *
Copyright, 1916, by
THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A SOCIAL FAILURE 7
II. DIFFERENT KINDS OF COURAGE 26
III. FAREWELL 41
IV. MAKING ACQUAINTANCES 58
V. “LADY DORIAN” 71
VI. A TRIAL OF FIRE 85
VII. THE LANDING 97
VIII. A MEETING 109
IX. “BUT YET A WOMAN” 124
X. BEHIND THE FIRING LINES 138
XI. OUT OF A CLEAR SKY 150
XII. FIRST AID 161
XIII. THE SUMMONS 169
XIV. COLONEL DALTON 179
XV. NEWSPAPER LETTERS 190
XVI. THE AMBULANCE CORPS 202
XVII. DICK 214
XVIII. A REAPPEARANCE 226
XIX. THE TEST 235
XX. A GIRL’S DEED 249
XXI. AN UNEXPECTED SITUATION 258
XXII. RECOGNITION 271
* * * * *
THE RED CROSS GIRLS IN THE BRITISH TRENCHES
CHAPTER I _A Social Failure_
The dance was over and Mildred Thornton climbed disconsolately up the
long stairs. From her thin shoulders floated a delicate white scarf
and her dress was of white lace and tulle. Yet Mildred had no look of
a conquering Princess, nor yet of Cinderella, who must have carried
her head proudly even after the ball, remembering the devotion of her
Prince.
But for Mildred there was no Prince to remember, nor devotion from
anyone. She was in that mood of hopeless depression which comes from
having attended a dance at which one has been a hopeless failure. Her
head drooped and though her cheeks were hot, her hands were cold.
Downstairs in the library she could hear her brother having his
good-night talk with their mother. Of course he did not intend that
she should overhear what was being said, and yet distinctly his words
floated up to her.
“Well, dearest, I did what I could, I swear it. Do hand me another one
of those sandwiches; playing the devoted brother takes it out of me.
But poor old Mill is no go! The fellows were nice enough, of course;
they danced with her whenever I asked them, but the worst of it was
they would not repeat the offense. You know Mill dances something like
an animated telegraph pole, and though she is a brick and all that,
she hasn’t an ounce of frivolous conversation. Do you know, I actually
heard her talking about the war, and no one in our set ever speaks of
the war now; we are jolly tired of the subject.”
Whatever her mother’s reply, it was given in so low a tone as to be
inaudible. But again Dick’s voice was pitched louder.
“Oh, all right, I’ll keep up the struggle a while longer, as I
promised, but it’s no use. Have you ever thought of what will become of
your adored son’s popularity if he has to continue in New York society
with a ‘Mill’ stone hung about his neck?”
On the stairs the girl bit her lips, flinging back her head to keep the
tears away. For at once there had followed the sound of her brother’s
pleased laugh over his own wit, then her mother’s murmured protest.
So plainly could Mildred Thornton see the picture in the library that
it was not necessary for her to be present except in the spirit.
Indeed, it was in order that she might not intrude upon Dick’s
confession that she had insisted upon going at once to her own room as
soon as they arrived at home. Nevertheless, no one need tell her that
her brother had not the faintest intention of being unkind. He never
liked hurting people’s feelings; yet when one is handsome and charming,
sometimes it is difficult to understand how those who are neither must
feel.
In her own room a moment later, Mildred, touching the electric button,
flooded her apartment with a soft yellow light. Then deliberately
placing herself before a long mirror the girl began a study of her own
appearance. After all, was she so much less good looking than other
girls? Was that the reason why Dick had been compelled to report to
their mother her extraordinary lack of social success? And if this had
been the only occasion, once would not have mattered. But after three
months of the same story, with everything done to help her, beautiful
clothes, her own limousine, her father’s money and reputation,
her mother’s and brother’s efforts--why, no wonder her family was
discouraged. But if only her mother had not been so disappointed and so
chagrined, Mildred felt she would not have cared a great deal. There
were other things in life besides society.
Yet now, without fear or favor, Mildred Thornton undertook to form an
impartial judgment of herself.
In the mirror she saw reflected a girl taller than most girls, but even
in these days when slenderness is a mark of fashion, certainly one who
was too thin. However, there was comfort in the fact that her shoulders
were broad and flat and that she carried her head well.
“For one must find consolation in something,” Mildred murmured aloud.
Then because she did not consider that the consolations were as
numerous as they might have been, she frowned. It was unfortunate, of
course, that her hair, though long and heavy, was also straight and
flaxen and without the yellow-brown lights that were so attractive.
Then assuredly her chin was too square and her mouth too large.
Closer she peered into the mirror. Her nose was not so bad; it could
not be called piquant, nor yet pure Greek, but it was a straight,
American nose. And at any rate her eyes were fairly attractive; if one
wished to be flattering they might even be called handsome. They were
almost steel color, large and clear, with blue and gray lights in them.
Her eyebrows and lashes were much darker than her hair. If only their
expression had not always been so serious!
Turning her head first on one side and then on the other, attempting to
dart ardent, challenging glances at herself, suddenly Mildred made a
little grimace. Then throwing back her head she laughed. Instantly the
attraction she had been hoping for appeared in her face although the
girl herself was not aware of it.
“Mildred Thornton, what an utter goose you are! It is tragic enough to
be a stick and a wall flower. But when you attempt behaving like the
girls who are belles, you simply look mad.”
Moving aside from the mirror Mildred now let her party gown slip to the
floor.
She was standing in the center of a beautiful room whose walls were
gray and gold. The rug under her feet was also gray with a deep border
of yellow roses. Her bed was of mahogany and there was a mahogany
writing desk and table and low chairs of the same material. Through an
open door one could glimpse a private sitting room even more charming.
Indeed, as there was no possible luxury missing so there could be no
doubt that Mildred Thornton was a fortunately wealthy girl, which of
course meant that she had nothing to trouble her.
Nevertheless, at this moment Mildred was thinking, “Oh, if only I were
thirty instead of nineteen, I wonder if I might be allowed to be happy
in my own way.”
Then without remembering to throw a dressing gown across her shoulders,
tip-toeing across the floor without any apparent reason, the girl
unlocked a secret drawer in her desk. Opening it she drew out a large,
unusual looking envelope. She was staring at this while her eyes were
slowly filling with tears, when there came a sudden knock at her door.
At the same instant the envelope was thrust back into the drawer, and
not until then did Mildred answer or move toward her door.
A visit from her mother tonight was really one of the last things in
the world she desired. It was wicked to have so little sympathy with
one’s own mother and the fault was of course hers. But tonight she
was really too tired and depressed to explain why she had made no
more effort to be agreeable. Her mother would insist that she had only
herself to blame for her evening’s failure. It was hard, of course,
that so beautiful a woman could not have had a handsome daughter as
well as a handsome son.
But instead of her mother, there in the hall stood a tall, thin man,
whose light hair had turned gray. He had a strong, powerful face,
deeply lined, one that both men and women turned to look at the second
time.
“I heard you come upstairs alone, Mill dear,” Judge Thornton said,
smiling like a shamefaced schoolboy. “Don’t tell your mother or Dick,
will you, for we had better break it to them by degrees? But I sent a
check today for two thousand dollars to the Red Cross Fund to be used
in this war relief business, my dear. I had to do it, it was on my
conscience. I know your mother and brother won’t like it; they have
been scolding for a new motor car and I’ve said I couldn’t afford one.
Really four persons ought to be able to get on with two automobiles,
when a good many thousands are going without bread. We’ll stand
together, won’t we, even if my little girl has to give up one of her
debutante parties?”
Already Mildred’s arms were about her father’s neck so that he found it
difficult to talk, for that and other reasons.
“I am so glad, so glad,” she kept whispering. “You know how tiresome
Dick and mother feel I am because I don’t think we ought to keep on
playing and dancing and frivoling, when this horrible war is going
on and people are being wounded and killed every minute. If you only
guessed how I wanted to use the little knowledge and strength I have to
help.”
But the Judge now shook his head decisively and moved away.
“Nonsense, child, you are too young; such an idea is not to be thought
of. We ought never to have let you attend those hospital classes, or
at least I should not have allowed it. Goodness knows, your mother
fought the idea bitterly enough! But remember, you promised her that
you would give the same time to society that you have given to your
nursing, and that is three years. You can’t go back on your word, and
besides I won’t have you thinking so much about these horrors; you’ll
be making yourself ill. War isn’t a girl’s business.” Certainly Judge
Thornton was trying to be severe, but just beyond the door he turned
back.
“I sent the check in your name, Mill dear, so you can feel you are
doing a little something to help,” he added affectionately. “Good
night.”
Afterwards, although tired (and it was quite two o’clock when she was
finally in bed), Mildred Thornton found it almost impossible to sleep.
At first she kept seeing a vision of herself as she appeared at the
dance earlier in the evening. How stiff and solemn and out of place she
had seemed, and how impossible it had been to make conversation with
the young men her brother had brought forward and introduced to her!
In the first place, they had not seemed like men at all, but like the
fashionably dressed pictures in the magazine advertisements or the
faultless figures adorning the windows in men’s furnishing stores.
Besides, they had only wished to talk of the latest steps in the new
dances or the last musical comedy. And what a strange expression that
young fellow’s face had worn, when she had asked him if he had ever
thought of going over to help in the war! No wonder Dick had been so
ashamed of her.
Then, having fallen asleep, Mildred began dreaming. Her father had
been right, she must have been thinking more than she should about the
war. Because in her dream she kept seeing regiment after regiment of
soldiers marching across broad, green fields, with bands playing, flags
flying and their faces shining in the sun. Finally they disappeared
in a cloud of black smoke, and when this took place she had awakened
unexpectedly.
Sitting up in bed with her long flaxen braids hanging over either
shoulder, Mildred wondered what had aroused her at this strange hour?
Then she remembered that it was the loud, clear ringing of their front
door bell. Moreover, she had since become conscious of other noises in
the house. Her brother had rushed out of his room and was calling to
the man servant who had turned on the lights down in the front hall.
“I say, Brown, be careful about opening that front door, will you? Wait
half a moment until I get hold of my pistol and I’ll join you. I don’t
like this business of our being aroused at a time like this. It must be
just before daylight and New York is full of burglars and cutthroats.”
Dick then retired into his room and the next sound Mildred heard was
his voice expostulating with his mother.
“Oh, go on back to bed, dearest, and for heaven’s sake keep father out
of this. Certainly there is no danger; besides, if there were I am
not such a mollycoddle that I’m going to have Brown bear the brunt.
Somebody’s got to open the door or that bell will never stop ringing.”
Then Dick’s feet in his bedroom slippers could be heard running down
the uncarpeted stairs. A moment later Mildred got into her wrapper and
stood with her arm about her mother’s waist, shivering and staring down
into the hall.
If anything should happen to Dick it would be too tragic! Her mother
adored him.
The butler was now unfastening the storm doors, while directly behind
him Dick waited with his pistol at a convenient level.
Then both men stepped backward with astonished exclamations, allowing
a queer, small figure to enter the hall without a word of protest. The
next moment Mildred was straining her ears to hear one of the most
bewitching voices she had ever imagined. Later an equally bewitching
figure unfolded itself from a heavy coat.
“It’s sorry I am to have disturbed you at such an hour,” the girl
began. “But how was I to know that the train from Chicago would arrive
at three o’clock in the morning instead of three in the afternoon?
I was hoping some one would be at the station to meet me, though of
course I didn’t expect it, so I just took a cab and found the way here
myself.”
Then the newcomer smiled with a kind of embarrassed wistfulness.
For the first time beholding Dick’s pistol, which was now hanging in a
dangerously limp fashion in his hand, she started.
“Oh,” she exclaimed, “I suppose you think that in Nebraska we go about
with pistols in our hands instead of pocket handkerchiefs; but, really,
we don’t welcome guests with them.”
Having dropped her coat on the floor, the girl under the light looked
so tiny that she seemed like a child. She had short, curly dark hair
which her tight-fitting traveling cap had pressed close against her
face. Her eyes were big and blue, and perhaps because she was pale from
fatigue her lips were extremely red.
Indeed, Dick Thornton decided, and never afterwards changed his
opinion, that she was one of the best looking girls he had ever seen in
his life. But who could she be, where had she come from, and what was
she doing in their house at such an extraordinary hour?
Clearing his throat, Dick made a tremendous effort to appear
impressive. Yet he was frightfully conscious of his own absurdity. He
knew that his hair must be standing on end, that his dressing gown had
been donned in a hurry and that he had on slippers with a space between
his feet and dressing gown devoid of covering. Moreover, what was he to
do with his absurd pistol?
“I am afraid you have made a mistake,” Dick began lamely. “If you are
a stranger in New York and have just arrived to visit friends, perhaps
we can tell you where to find them. Or, or, if you--” Dick did not feel
that it was exactly his place to invite a strange young woman to spend
the rest of the night at their home; yet as her cab had gone one could
hardly turn her out into the street. Why did not his mother or Mildred
come on down and help him out. Usually he knew the right thing to say
and do, but this situation was too much for him. Besides, the girl
looked as if she might be going to cry.
But she was a plucky little thing, because instead of crying she tried
to laugh.
“I have made a mistake, of course,” she faltered. “I was looking for
Judge Richard Thornton’s home on Seventy-fourth Street, the number was
28 I thought. Has the cabman brought me to the wrong place?”
Slowly Mrs. Thornton was now approaching them with Mildred hovering in
the background. But Dick did not altogether like the expression of his
mother’s face. It showed little welcome for the present intruder. Now
what could he say to make her happier before any one else had a chance
to speak.
“Why, that _is_ my father’s name and our address all right, and I
expect we are delighted to see you. I wonder if you would mind telling
us your name and where you have come from? You see, we were not exactly
looking for a visitor, but we are just as glad to see you.”
The girl had turned at once toward Mrs. Thornton and it was astonishing
how much dignity she possessed in spite of her childish appearance.
“I regret this situation more than I can express. I am sure I owe you
an explanation, although I do not know exactly what it can be,” she
began. “My name is Barbara Meade. Several weeks ago my father wrote to
his old school friend, Judge Richard Thornton, saying that I was to be
in New York for a short time on my way to England. He asked if it would
be convenient to have me stay with you. He received an answer saying
that it _would_ be perfectly convenient and that I might come any
day. Then before I left, father telegraphed.” Barbara’s lips were now
trembling, although she still kept back the tears. “If you will call a
cab for me, please, I shall be grateful to you. I would have gone to a
hotel tonight, only I did not know whether a hotel would receive me at
this hour.”
“My dear child, you will do no such thing. There has been some mistake,
of course, since I have never heard of your visit. But certainly we
are not going to turn you out in the night,” Mrs. Thornton interrupted
kindly.
Ordinarily she was supposed to be a cold woman. Now her manner was so
charming that her son and daughter desired to embrace her at the same
moment. But there was no time for further discussion or demonstration,
because at this instant a new figure joined the little group. Actually
Judge Thornton looked more like a criminal than one of the most famous
criminal lawyers in New York state.
Nevertheless, immediately he put his arm about Barbara Meade’s
shoulders.
“My dear little girl, you need never forgive me; I shall not forgive
myself nor expect any one else to do so. Certainly I received that
letter from your father. Daniel Meade is one of my dearest friends
besides being one of the finest men in the United States. Moreover, I
wrote him that we should be most happy to have his daughter stay with
us as long as she liked, but the fact of the matter is--” several times
the tall man cleared his throat. “Well, my family will tell you that I
am the most absent-minded man on earth. I simply forgot to mention the
matter to my wife or any one else. So now you have to stay on with us
forever until you learn to forgive me.”
Then Dick found himself envying his father as he patted their visitor’s
shoulder while continuing to beg her forgiveness.
But the next moment his mother and sister had led their little guest
away upstairs. Then when she was safely out of sight Dick again became
conscious of his own costume--or lack of it.